The College Forecast

Ahh so much to say about this site. During the 2nd semester of my senior year in college, we had to complete a senior project. The guidelines were to find a client, and do something for them. That was it pretty much. I was stuck on ideas and did not really even know where to begin.

Enter my friend Brian.

Brian had been talking about creating a Facebook/MySpace type community, but for college musicians and fans. He did not really have the web experience to do it, so we agreed that I would undertake it as my senior project. Now this was definitely way over my head, but I had to get it done to get the grade.

So I ordered Larry Ullman’s PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites, and it was one of my best purchases ever. This book was a great starting point for me, and I have since fallen in love with PHP.

The College Forecast has many features. Users can register as artists or fans, create a profile, participate in the forum, and listen to music uploaded by the college musicians. There is a top ten list, newest songs list, artist of the month, and much more. Needless to say, I got a 100% on the project.

This site really is one of the best examples of what I am currently capable of. It is written all in PHP with a MySQL backend, and valid XHTML and CSS on the front-side. I love the Sliding Doors tab navigation along with the color scheme. I also really like the musician silhouettes that I used in the header.

I had been maintaining it for a while, but I had to tell my friend that I could no longer support it. It was very time consuming, and I did not see the possibility of success in the future. While the site is still running, I am not sure about how active the users are.

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